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Eurovision Song Contest 2006
The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 'was the 24th annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, following Azerbaijan's win the the 2002 contest with Safura's song "March On". It was announced on April 13, 2012 that both the semi finals would take place on the 23 and 25 of May 2012 and the grand final on the 27 May 2012. Fourty-two countries competed, one country less than last year. Both Poland and San Marino debuted at the contest and Andorra, Armenia and the Czech Republic withdrew from this contest. It was won by singer Eric Saade from Sweden with the song "Popular". Denmark finished second, Germany third, Greece finished fourth and host Azerbaijan finished fifth. Germany and the United Kingdom were the two members of the "Big Five" that managed to rank within in the top 10, finishing in 3rd and 6th respectively. Spain was just outside the top 10 in 11th place, while the remaining two "Big Five" members, Italy and France finished in 16th and 23rd places respectively. Location On 6 May 2012, Ictimai Television and the EBU announced that the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 would take place in the new Baku Crystal Hall venue in Baku, Azerbaijan. The maximum capacity of the venue is 23,000, but only 16,000 people were able to attend each show. Format In a meeting of the Eurovision Reference Group on 28 April 2012, it was decided that different from the contests before, the televoting system would revert to a 15-minute window format in which the phone lines wont open until after all the songs had been performed. However on 30 April 2012, these plans were scrapped and the same format as the previous editions was put in place in which lines open at the beginning of the show, to give the countries with an early draw more of a chance. The results format of each show remained the same with each country's votes being decided on a 50:50 split between televoting and a national jury. Like last year, the official number of participants in the final was 26, including the host nation, the "Big Five" , and the ten qualifiers from each semi-final. Participating countries On 10 May 2012, the EBU announced that forty-two countries would take part in the 2003 contest. The 6th edition sees the debut of Poland and San Marino, as well as the withdrawal of Andorra, Armenia and the Czech Republic. The draw to determine the running order for the semi-finals and the grand final took place on 14 May 2012. Results 'Semi-final 1 Azerbaijan, Italy and Spain voted in this semi-final. 'Semi-final 2' France, Germany and United Kingdom voted in this semi-final. 'Final' Returning artists Withdrawals * Andorra – Due to low public interest, the Andorran delegation announced it would not compete in the 006 contest and probably none in the future. * Armenia – Due to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan because of the Nagorno-Karabakh War, security could be an issue for Armenia. * Czech Republic – On April 4, 2012, speaking about coming last in the first semi final, the delegation for the Czech Republic announced that Czech broadcaster Czech Television (CT), expressed their interest in withdrawing from the 006 contest to focus their budget on more sporting and international events, also the public interest was low.